Apparatus for the registration of the medicaments and of their valence on the basis of observed symptoms



June 17, 1969 L. JACCARD 3,450,866

. APPARATUS FOR THE REGISTRATION OF THE MEDICAMENTS AND OF THEIR VALENCE ON THE BASIS OF OBSERVED SYMPTOMS Filed July 28, 1965 Sheet of 2 a 8 a K 4 mvsuron.

' 2 Lon Jaccard 3,450,866 NTS AND OF June 17, 1969 1.. JACCARD v ISTRATION OF THE MEDICAME APPARATUS FOR THE REG THE BASIS OF OBSERVED SYMPTOMS Sheet Z 012 THEIR VALENCE 0N Filed July 28,

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INVENTOR. Leon Jaccard United States Patent Oflice 3,450,866 Patented June 17, 1969 3,450,866 APPARATUS FOR THE REGISTRATION OF THE MEDICAMENTS AND OF THEIR VALENCE ON THE BASIS OF OBSERVED SYMPTOMS Lon Jaccard, Neuchatel, Switzerland, assignor to Laboratoire Suisse de Recherches Horlogeres, Neucliatel, Switzerland Filed July 28, 1965, Ser. No. 475,448 Claims priority, application Switzerland, Aug. 14, 1964, 10,649/ 64 Int. Cl. G06k 7/00; G06c 1/00; A63f 1/18 US. Cl. 235-6111 10 Claims ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE A homoeopathic remedy is determined by isolating a layer of balls above a series of tubes and interposing one of a plurality of punch cards between the balls and the tubes to preferentially pass only certain of the balls to the tubes. The process is repeated for each card and the total accumulation of balls and tubes determine the homoeopathic remedy.

Homoeopathy (founded by Dr. Samuel Hahnem-ann) is a therapeutic doctrine according to which the diseases are cured, basing on the observed symptoms, with substances of vegetable, animal or mineral nature. By examining a healthy man, one obtains the symptoms corresponding to the several substances tested (medicaments). If these symptoms-medicaments are identical with those of the disease, the medicament found is the remedy for that disease. Similia similibus curantur, i.e. Let likes be cured by likes, is the first principle of homoeopathy. In other words, the essential tenets of homoeopathy are that the cure of disease is effected by drugs that are capable of Sym V Substance medicament) Medicament:

producing in a healthy individual symptoms similar to those of the disease to be treated.

Now, the experience has shown that, in order to cure a disease, it is necessary to use small and even very minute doses, and not large, toxic doses. The second principle of homoeopathy is the so-called dilution principle, according to which only very minute doses of medicine are to be used.

In order to find the correct homoeopathic remedy, one proceeds as follows:

The homoeopath has at his disposal the symptoms of all of the substances tested. This is called the list of symptoms a tested substance may have up to 2000 symptoms). By way of example, the substance X may give, upon a test on 100 healthy persons, 30 symptoms in 100%,.

250 symptoms in 25% and 500 symptoms in 5% of the persons observed. A certain valence of the symptoms is thus obtained, which must be taken into consideration upon choosing the medicament. The different medicaments have, therefore, characteristic symptoms and secondary symptoms. The same symptoms may of course also occur with other medicaments. However, they are characteristic symptoms for a medicament, whereas for another medicament they are less important and for a third medicament they are quite secondary. This importance is denoted by a numeral (3, 2, 1) which is called valence.

On asking the patient, the homoeopath endeavors to find out as many as possible of symptoms (he is already satisfied when he finds to symptoms).

Example secondary medicaments. Two medicaments would therefore be trivalent, 10 bivalent and monovalent.

The search of the medicaments may be represented as follows:

THE MEDICAMENTS ON HEALTHY PERSONS (A-J) WITH PRODUCED SYMPTOMS ptoms (represented by numerals) alence designated by E (II) REPRESENTATION OF THE SEARCH OF ONE OR MORE MEDICAMENTS FOR A PATIENT, ON THE BASIS OF THE SYMPTOMS OBSERVED It will thus be seen that for this patient the medicaments A and B, both with the valence 6, have to be taken into consideration. The physician who is well acquainted with the Materia medica will prescribe the administration of A or B.

In the practice, not only 28 symptoms are encountered, but thousands, of symptoms, and the available medicaments are not only 9 (A to I), but also thousands, so that the search of the medicaments suitable for a patient is neglected or becomes a brain-racking task. By way of example, if a patient presents symptoms, 3 to 4 hours are necessary for establishing the prescription.

The present invention relates to an apparatus adapted to quickly register the valence of the medicaments from the symptoms observed. It is thus possible to find in a very short lapse of time the suitable medicament or medicaments, affected with the highest valences.

The apparatus according to the invention is characterized by vertical tubes maintained in a support and forming, when seen from above, a rectangular assembly, by a system of obturators enabling to drop into certain tubes balls contained in a magazine under the control of punch cards successively introduced into the system of obturators, each card or group of cards corresponding to the medicament or medicaments prescribed for a given symptom and each tube corresponding to a given remedy, and by means for reading the number of the balls contained in each tube, this number indicating the importance of the corresponding remedy.

The accompanying drawing illustrates, by way of example, an embodiment of the apparatus according to the invention.

FIG. 1 is a sectional elevation of said embodiment.

FIG. 2 is a top plan view of same.

FIG. 3 is a sectional elevation of the means enabling to read the dosage of each remedy and, therefore, to establish the prescription.

The apparatus illustrated includes a support 1 on which are secured vertical tubes 2 forming, when seen from the top as in FIG. 2, a rectangular assembly. The tubes 2 are preferably made of a transparent material, for instance of glass. A system of coordinates lettersnumerals permits designating each tube, and each tube cor-responds to a given remedy. In the example illustrated, there are 11 rows having each 21 tubes, which permit the dosage of 231 different medicaments. It is of course possible to increase or reduce at will the capacity of the apparatus.

At their top portion, the tubes 2 are held in a second support 3, so that both supports 1, 3 and the tubes 2 form a rigid structure.

The second support 3 has on its periphery holes 4 adapted to receive pins such as 5 rigidly connected with a piece 6 visible in FIG. 1. The piece 6 has, on the one hand, a hopper 7, adapted to contain a supply of balls 8 and, on the other hand, a set of tubes 9 exactly superposed to the above-described tubes 2. The walls of the tubes 9 are tapered at their top end, in order to avoid that balls remain clung between two tubes 9. The piece 6 has at its low portion two horizontal slots extending over almost the whole surface occupied by the tubes 9. The upper slot is adapted to receive a first obturator 10, whereas the lower slot is adapted to receive, on the one hand, a second obturator 11 and, on the other hand, a punch card 12. The distance separating both slots of the piece 6 is somewhat greater than the diameter of a ball 8.

The first support 1 has also a set of horizontal slots, each adapted to receive an obturating tongue 13. The number of the tongues 13 is equal to the number of the rows of tubes 2 (in our Example 11).

The support 1 itself lies on a container 14, partly shown in FIG. 1, said container being adapted to receive the balls 8 after use of the apparatus.

The punch cards 12 are established in the following manner:

For a given symptom, we have seen that the consulted works give the names of remedies having a determined valence. For each symptom three punch cards are prepared. A trivalent remedy will appear on the three cards; a bivalent remedy will appear on the two first cards, and finally a monovalent remedy will only appear on the first card. In the example described, we have therefore a group of three cards for each symptom observed in the patient.

The operation of the apparatus described and illustrated is as follows:

The obturator 11 is put in place and the hopper 7 is filled with balls 8. All the tubes 9 are thus filled with balls, as shown in FIG. 1. If the tubes 2 are not empty, the obturating tongues 13 are drawn and pushed again, so that the balls fall into the container 14. Now, the obturator 10 is introduced, which isolates a plane of balls 8, i.e., a single layer of balls, between the obturators 11 and 10. The first punch card 12 of the first group (group corresponding to the first symptom observed in the patient) is then int-roducted and the obturator 11 is retracted. The balls 8 which are in front of holes of the card 12 fall into the tubes 2. The obturator 11 is again put in place and the card 12 is removed. Then, the obturator 10 is removed and again put in place, so that the plane or layer of balls is again completed. The same is performed for the second and the third cards of the first group, and so on for the other groups. When all of the punch cards have been passed through the apparatus, certain tubes 2 contain balls 8 and others do not contain balls. The number of balls contained in a given tube indicates the importance of the remedy corresponding to this tube.

FIG. 3 illustrates an auxiliary device for facilitating the reading of the dosages. It comprises a set of rods 15 slidably mounted in a supporting plate 16. Each rod 15 bears at its upper portion a scale from O to a certain number. At the top of each rod 15 is secured a cap 17 bearing the number of the corresponding remedy. The support 16 has a slot into which is introduced an obturator 18. At its lower portion, each rod 15 has an enlargement 19.

If the supporting plate 16 is turned up with its rods 15, the rods slide and the enlargements 19 occupy the recesses 20 provided in the plate 16. The obturator 18 is then pushed and the plate 16 is again turned up. The plate 16 is placed on the support 3 and the obturator 18 is retracted. The rods 15 come down under the action of their own weight and take various positions according to the number of balls contained in the tubes 2. The position of each rod permits reading a numeral indicating the importance of the corresponding remedy.

In a modified embodiment (not shown), the hopper 7 might be omitted. The supply of balls would then consist of sets of balls 8 vertically arranged in the tubes 9. Such a device would avoid the use of a means for returning into the hopper the balls which have been used for a measuring operation. In order to replace the balls into their respective tubes, it would sufiice to turn up the whole device by 180 about a horizontal axis. The tubes 9 would have a length at least equal to that of the tubes 2. The tongues 13 would no longer be necessary.

While I have described and illustrated one embodiment of my invention, I do not wish to unnecessarily limit the scope thereof, but reserve the right to make such modifications and rearrangements of the several parts as may come within the purview of the accompanying claims.

What is claimed:

1. A device for homoeopathic evaluation comprising, in combination,

a first set of vertical tubes, each containing a supply of similarly dimensioned measuring members. a second set of vertical tubes below said first set of tubes and arranged in registry therewith, and

means for preferentially transferring individual measuring members to difierent ones of said second set of tubes in accord with a series of selecting cards passing only those measuring member corresponding to certain of said tubes of said second set, said means comprising a pair of removable obturators for isolating a single layer of said measuring members above said second set of tubes for each selecting card, and a plurality of selecting cards.

2. A device according to claim 1, wherein said tubes are made of a transparent material.

3. The device according to claim 1 wherein said obturators are disposed in vertically spaced relation.

4. The device according to claim 3 wherein said obturators are disposed in vertically spaced relation, said selecting cards being removably received below the lower of said obturators.

5. The device according to claim 1 including a removable supporting member normally covering the lower end of said second set of tubes.

6. The device according to claim 1 wherein said plurality of selecting cards each have openings corresponding to only certain of said tubes of the second set.

7. The device according to claim 6 wherein said obturators are disposed in vertically spaced relation.

8. A device according to claim 1 including a hopper for supplying measuring members to said first set of tubes.

9. A device according to claim 1 wherein said measuring members are balls.

10. A device according to claim 8, including an auxiliary device comprising a set of rods slidably mounted in a supporting plate and bearing a scale, arranged in such a manner that each rod may descend under the action of its own weight into one of said second set of tubes and takes a position depending on the number of the members contained in each tube.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 1,966,695 7/ 1934 Van Schaack. 2,463,763 3/1949 Grafl? 35-31.4 XR 2,486,260 10/ 1949 Church 3531.4 2,889,634 6/1959 Brinemann 273-139 3,340,385 9/1967 Jonker et al 235-61.11

MAYNARD R. WILBUR, Primary Examiner. SOL SHEINBEIN, Assistant Examiner. 

